Recently, I’ve stumbled across a series of examples which focus more broadly on ways that culture—at least all of those phobias we classify as culture--can speed or retard the adoption of technology.

For example, when Ashton Kutcher began using Twitter, his adoring fan base embraced the messaging technology.Meanwhile, much of the rest of America continued to read and revel in a slew of “I don’t get it” articles.Now, what happens if Americans decide Twitter has been the key to supporting democratic resistance in Iran?How much of a boost will accrue to Twitter if the technology is—culturally speaking--suddenly part of the Great American Way?

That’s a pretty heady line-up, and combined, the repository of some real leadership and organizational wisdom.

With that in mind, I’ve distilled the interviews into one, very blunt interview that tries to capture the flavor of what these CEOs are saying (kind of what Pandora does for music). Note that none of them actually said what I wrote below (mostly); it’s just my best guess at what, with a few beers and not being quoted in the Sunday New York Times, they were really saying.Think of it as an unvarnished interview with the “blunt CEO.”

Q: Tell me about meetings.

A: They take a lot of my time, and I don’t like them much, so here are my rules: Show up on time or I’ll kill you.End in about an hour or I’ll kill you.Send me the PowerPoint in advance and make sure everyone has read it before the meeting, cause if you take “the long and winding road” through every slide, I’ll kill you.

Q: Anything surprise you about the CEO job?

A: Everything I say is amplified.My thinking-out-loud can stop a discussion.A suggestion becomes a mandate.I have to be very careful, go slow, ask questions.People often take what I say, even my musings, at face value.(In fact, about that “killing stuff” in the first question--can we forget I said that?)

Q: What are your weaknesses?

A: I’m impatient.I’m anxious.I’m a little neurotic. I can have a bad temper. I run people over if I’m not careful.I can’t always stay focused on you when you’re answering a question because my mind is already on to the next point.I need to listen better.I know that, and I’m trying.Really.

Q: What annoys you most?

A: When people dump a problem on me and haven’t worked a solution.In fact, one way I assess talent is to look for the people who are creating big, far-ranging, creative solutions to our biggest problems.Don’t drop the Rubik’s Cube in my office unless you have a plan for twisting it into shape.

Q: Anything else?

A: Complicated stuff.Business isn’t easy but it should be simple.There are only three or four things that we can focus on as an organization at any one time.My job is to make sure everyone knows what they are.Your job is to stay focused on them, and keep your team focused.

Q: Anything else?

A: I should be able to tell you who we are and what we do and stand for in about ten seconds, without any buzz or double-talk.Likewise, when I ask you a question about your business, you should keep the answer very focused.Once you launch into a monologue I know you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Q: Anything else?

A: It’s hard sometimes for me to find the balance between optimism and realism.And it stinks when good people are working hard and being successful but the economy and environment keep me from rewarding them as they deserve.

Q: What do you look for in employees?

A: IQ.Emotional intelligence.Integrity.Passionate curiosity.Energy.The ability to connect the dots across disciplines and throughout the environment.Tech-savvy.Great communication skills; in fact, if you can’t write, I probably won’t hire you.

Q: How do you keep up with the business?

A: I stay in touch by staying in touch.I get into the field two days a week or more.That makes some of my employees uncomfortable, but being CEO can be a solitary job.I can’t function without unvarnished feedback from customers, and employees who deal with customers.And I’m used to incoming missiles, so don’t be afraid to launch them.

I also seek really candid feedback from HR and my board.I don’t like it any better than you do, and I ignore about a third of it (just like you do), but the rest is indispensable.

Q: How do you manage your time?

A: I get up early, I exercise, I reserve time to think and stay organized, and I keep my meetings efficient.I’m hooked on the Blackberry/iPhone.But if you use yours in a meeting, I’ll kill you.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Since writing about the concept of historical postcards, I’ve stumbled upon a few, very current examples of how our history is purposefully shaped by our present.It's an old and powerful idea, though at odds with our sense that the past is fixed.

In fact, our efforts to control the past often exceed those we invest in setting our future.

Where the past and present often meet most violently is in our statues, those monuments intended to be permanent reflections of great people and great ideas. Some examples:

When Lafayette made his triumphant tour of the United States, his last stop was to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.On June 17, 1825 he marched with 30,000 spectators (including 40 veterans of the battle) to the dedication on the hill, which he termed his “North Star.” Bunker Hill was the quintessential moment for many in the Revolutionary generation, the first moment the colonists realized they could stand toe-to-toe with the British. Today, there’s a budget-driven movement in Massachusetts to eliminate Bunker Hill Day (June 17) as a paid day-off for government and schools in Boston’s SuffolkCounty.Lafayette’s “North Star" is yielding to financial griping over “pointless days off.”

Around Baillet-en-France, French archaeologists have unearthed dozens of nine-foot, 1937 era Soviet-built sculptures (like a tank driver and a textile worker) honoring the international brotherhood of workers.Straight from the Soviet pavilion at the 1937 Paris World Fair, the Soviets gave some of the statues to the French, but when Communism fell out-of-favor the statues were buried.Now resurrected, the statues remain problematic, as Stalin-era art is not entirely simpatico with modern France.

Back in America, we’re moving statues around, too.Earlier this month a statue of Ronald Reagan was installed in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.Each state is allowed two statues, and it is a big deal to change them: both chambers of a state legislature must vote, the governor must endorse the decision and then the federal government is petitioned.So who got knocked out by Reagan this time?Thomas Starr King, a Universalist minister and “the orator who saved the nation,” credited by Lincoln as keeping California in the union.That’s not a bad resume, but obviously not enough to keep Reagan out of the rotunda.

Every statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who appears 32 times in Tennessee (more than Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson combined).A brilliant cavalry commander with a mixed military career, he became the first national leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Perhaps Americans could steal a page from the Spanish, whose socialist government has banned fascist icons.That means Gen. Francisco Franco’s statue was uprooted from the city square of Santander and banished to a local museum last December.The Spanish government reasons that no Nazi symbols are allowed in Germany, no statues to Mussolini are on display on Italian streets—why should the symbol of their painful past be on public display?

In Mickey Mouse History, Mike Wallace reminds us that Serbian troops besieging cities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s made a point of blowing up museums, monuments, libraries, and archives.It was, he says, an effort at “historic cleansing.”

It is a reminder that we move history at will--even the big, heavy variety--to suit the purposes of the present.

At the time I suggested five postcards for the late Baby Boomers: 9/11, the Challenger disaster, the moon landing, MLK, and JFK.

I also wondered about the “Stan Musial problem,” which Bill James offered up in his marvelous Historical Baseball Abstract (1986): “The image of Musial seems to be fading quickly. Maybe I'm wrong, but it doesn't seem to me that you hear much about him anymore, compared to such comparable stars as Mantle, Williams, Mays and DiMaggio, and to the extent that you do hear of him it doesn't seem that the image is very sharp. . .He makes a better statue.”

Why does that happen, I wonder? It's almost the reverse of the historical postcard, when an event or person who is vibrant and important in public life seems to rapidly fade once her or she is no longer practicing their craft.

Jim Thorpe was voted the greatest athlete of the first fifty years of the twentieth century.Where’d he go? Mary Pickford was the most popular actress and maybe best-known woman in the world, auctioning off one of her curls for $15,000 to raise money during WWI. Where’d she go?

The Mexican-American War of 1846—it's the war in which Winfield Scott taught Grant and Lee how to fight, the war that saw at Veracruz the most dramatic amphibious landing before D-Day--not to mention the subsequent securing of the “Halls of Montezumas” in Mexico City.Long afterward, the son of Dwight Eisenhower would call Winfield Scott “the most capable soldier this country has ever produced.”Where did Scott go?

For that matter, what happened to George Marshall, who raised an army of 7 million men and was said to be the closest thing to George Washington that America produced in the 20th century?